Re: Informix left standing

E-Z Informix Market Forkast-o-rama analysis: OK, I confess, I read a book, "Megamistakes, Forecasting and the Myth of Rapid Technological Change" 1989, by Steven P. Schnaars, some marketing weasel. So now I am an armchair expert with 20/20 hindsight. So lets look at the obvious. Why was parallelization and scalability such a great product, Informix 7.x, and why is it the Univeral Server object stuff, Informix 8.x, just about kilt us. Last, how is the CEO going to pull a rose out of his ass with the new 'Datawarehouse, no low end' market strategy? The Basic questions: Who are the customers? How large is the market? Will the new tech offer a real benefit over existing and subsequent substitutes? Is the new tech cost-effective relative to the substitutes? Is the customer benefit worth the price charged? Are cost efficiencies (of the product) possible? Are social trends moving toward or away from this market? Does the innovation require users to do things differently? Does the innovation go against customs, culture, or established business practices? From the above questions Informix 7.x answered everything asked in a very positive way. The social trend of SMP architectures were here. Customers and programers didn't have to change the way stuff was done just install on the SMP and get instant performance and scale benefit. The product was a hit. Informix 8.x has problems with several of the questions, like who are the customers, how big is the market, customers have to do things differently (OOP vs relational modelling, programming ect) No culture of DB objects in business. The product is awesome tech, but the timing is wrong to bet the farm. In 5-10 years this type of product may take off like a rocket. But a couple negative billion dollar years will kill Informix. So the new strategy of 'Data warehouse, no low end'. How does this stack up? Yes there are customers, trends and business culture, unlike 8.x. In fact it is 7.x warmed over and targeted at the warehouse market. The big cheap disk arrays trend well and MMP arch is here, just as the SMP arch was for 7.x. The main troubles: Is it a real benefit over the substitutes and future products? And is the market big enough to support Informix? Well, how the hell am I supposed to know?